Caterina in the Big City

CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY offers a novel and original approach to The Teen Genre. A timeless 'Coming of Age' tale is portrayed with truth and style, although the specifics of contemporary Italian politics lose a bit in translation, even a viewer who is ignorant of European politics is not left in the dark. Caterina (played by Alice Teghil) is a junior high school aged student who relocates to Rome with her family. Her father is a frustrated teacher who feels that his career has been sidetracked in the sleepy, coastal town of Monalto, and looks forward to the possibility of social and intellectual advancement in the big city. Soon, he runs up against the stratified nature of Italian society, and Caterina encounters the same setup, but within her school system. From her first day in class, she meets classmates who toss around political jeremiads which they don't really comprehend, but are very emotionally attached. Although, by the end of the school year, Caterina is moved and changed by her experiences, she seems to understand that these emotionally charged names and categories never tell the whole story, and really amount to passionate clichés. Paolo Virzì, the director, is known in Italy for his ability to examine the entrenched nature of Italian politics with humor and insight. CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY an intelligent look at what it is like to live in a stratified society, and to strive to locate your unique and proper place.

I wish I could say that this was a great film because there really were a lot of things that one could like about it.

As it turns out, however, it is a good, but flawed film. I will give this film a recommendation, I think it is worth seeing.

The film made a number of incredible social statements. It really cuts to the quick about the nature of society, the people who can manipulate the system on both sides are in collusion with each other to keep their privilege. The people who are on the outside find themselves on the outside, looking in. They can be taken under someone's wing but they are never really more then a pet, the Jimmy Olsen to someone's Superman.

The film had spectacular acting, particularly from the lead.

So what then keeps the film from being great? One of the biggest problems comes from the episodic and picaresque structure of the film. It has the kind of structure that is more interesting because of its discontinuity then because of its continuity. And while it makes for a lot of interesting discussions, this could turn a lot of people off, probably even more then the subtitles.

Honestly, the problem is that it begins with Caterina being pulled in many directions and it allows us to see facets of her through these different social lenses. The trouble is that we never get a baseline reading on her in the beginning before she moves to Rome. This is done very well but we never get the impression of her as anything more then a tablet that the ideologies of others are being written on, even at the end of the film when she supposedly finds herself. I won't give a spoiler as to how but the ending that someone else commented was her in her element is really just another case of this.

You know what, I've changed my mind. This is a wonderful film to watch. Its a spectacular way to look at what life is really like when you are outside the powerful and privileged circles of society and you can only be influenced by the ideologies of others but you really lack any voice of your own.

Watch this along with Welcome to the Dollhouse and see what life was like for the rest of us. Let this film show you the social cliques, collusion and ideology and let Solondz show you the sheer cruelty of a society that, as J. G. Ballard said, normalized psychopathy. And see it for what it really is, not some sugarcoated network television version (I think you guys know what very popular television series I'm talking about).

This excellent Italian comedy is very similar in plot to Mean Girls (who came out in about the same time). The difference is that this is a much more politicized film. Caterina is a shy teenager from a small town in Italy, who moves to Rome with her long-suffering mother and her teacher father, when he is assigned to a new job there. In her new school, she has to choose to what clique to belong: the children of the progressive intellectuals or the children of the rich industrialists. The left or the right. What this film says is that these people are not terribly different between themselves. They both hold a degree of fame and power in Italian society, and look down upon those who don't. The outstanding performance in the movie is that of Caterina's father, the teacher Giancarlo (Sergio Castellito), a hothead angry that others have gotten all the breaks in life, who rants against the rich and privileged but who would sell his soul in a second in order to join the establishment. He is a familiar type of malcontent in real life but one who is seldom shown in the movies. There is a silly subplot of Caterina falling in love with an Australian boy (What they did that for? To reach an international market?), but all in all, this is one of the best Italian movies of the last years.

I am a student in Australia, in year 9, 15 years old, studying Italian at LaSalle Catholic College Bankstown. I viewed this film as an excursion 3 days ago, and I loved it. I feel for Caterina because I guess I am a little naive in a way. She didn't realize that people were using her, she didn't realize that Margherita liked her in a different, more romantic way, she didn't know about a lot that went on in Rome. It was a very nice, dramatic and funny storyline, and i suppose it appeals to a large audience. I rated it 9/10. I took off 1 mark because I feel not enough was shown of Edward, the guy she loved, the guy from "down under", the guy who most Australians can identify with. He played a prime role in my eyes because he brought her life back on track when she had run away. A little more could have also been shown of Fabietto and Agata's relationship. This film was an excellent representation of the comparison between the posh side of Italy and the grateful and appreciative side of Italy

'Caterina va in citta' ('Caterina in the Big City') is an Italian film that takes as its storyline the coming of age of a young teenager transported by her family from the quiet Tuscany seaside village of Montaldo Di Castro to the challenging realities of Big City Rome, but that is only the means to an end of exploring Italian politico-social life and its effects on the youth of today. It comes very close to drowning in its own excesses, but at the root of the film is a sensitive tale of a young girl's struggles with growing into an adulthood that puzzles, frightens and challenges her.

Caterina (Alice Teghil) finds her greatest moments of happiness in her home town singing mezzo soprano in the choir: simple pleasures in a simple setting surrounded by country folk content to live life day to day. Her father Giancarlo (Sergio Castellitto) is a teacher who can't hold a job, partially because he is so outspoken and partially because he is a raving truly obnoxious person. Her mother Agata (Margherita Buy) is subservient, a woman with few coping mechanisms who allows her odious husband to run an abusive household. Giancarlo's aunt is ill in Rome and with the idea of finding a job where his talents are respected, Giancarlo uproots his little family and moves to the big city. There the social castes are evident and Caterina is judged a country hick until she is befriended by first a rebel who bonds with Caterina, introduces her to tattoos and liquor, and causes a schism between her important mother (Giancarlo hoped to have is novel published by the woman), the daughter and his family. Caterina then is absorbed into the rich and spoiled rank and file of the wealthy, not fitting in until the girls do a make over. That situation is again disrupted by Giancarlo's blindly inappropriate behavior. The true Caterina is somehow lost, still dreaming of becoming a fine mezzo soprano, but tagging along with the crowd du jour. Ultimately Giancarlo's multiple and consistent failures drive him away from the family, he rides off to oblivion on his restored motorbike, and Agata and Caterina both bloom.

The noise level of this film is such that it is difficult to watch: the young girls means of communication is a mixture of screaming, loud talking, and fighting and otherwise making us uncomfortable. Yet underneath all of the political and social expose and brandishing is a truly wonderful young Caterina whose life as a soap opera is watched tenderly by an Australian boy who plays the guitar and observes her family from a window across the way from Caterina's Rome home. The moments toward the end of the film when the playback comes justifies the fuss of getting there.

This is not a film this viewer would sit through again, but reflecting on the story after all the commotion is over, hearing Mozart's 'Ave Verum Corpus' and Verdi's 'Nabucco" etc as the inspiration behind Caterina's honest dreams, makes is a more memorable experience. In Italian with English subtitles. Grady Harp